A fake news campaign hotline

NewsGuard, a new service that uses trained journalists to rate thousands of news and information sites, will announce that it has launched a secure, encrypted digital and telephone hotline for political candidates and members of the public to report suspected fake news sites.

The big picture: Steven Brill, co-CEO of NewsGuard: “We’ve already seen one case of a candidate citing an endorsement from a bogus site that was created by supporters of that candidate. This is a particularly insidious variety of fake news, because it is aimed directly at unsuspecting voters.”

From a forthcoming release: A "SWAT team of NewsGuard analysts will operate 24/7 to identify suddenly trending news sites that NewsGuard has not yet rated and assure — or warn — internet users about them in real time."